On the set of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, the crew was surprised by the slighting banter between actor Bruce Campbell and his frequent collaborator, director Sam Raimi.
Campbell spoke with Screen Rant at San Diego Comic-Con, sharing some details about how his relationship with the director has grown since Raimi's career has taken off. "He's become, in the last 20 years, a big Hollywood director since he did the first Spidey, and the crews are usually very surprised at how we trash talk each other," the actor commented. "They get weirded out when I trash talk him, because they're like, 'Did he just say that to Sam Raimi?' They don't really know our relationship. So, it's been very entertaining to stun the crew."
Campbell and Raimi's partnership began on the set of 1981's Evil Dead. The success of the gory horror film, grossing $2.7 million off of a $375,000 budget, set the careers of the pair in motion. The Evil Dead series grew to four films, with a fifth currently in development. The most recent installment, 2013's Evil Dead, had Raimi and Campbell attached as producers, although the latter's iconic character Ash only made an appearance in a post-credits scene. Warner Bros. Discovery's Evil Dead Rising, with Raimi and Campbell executive producing, is scheduled to be released on HBO Max sometime in 2022.
Besides featuring in some of Raimi's earlier horror work, Campbell had notable cameos in the Spider-Man series: the ring announcer in Spider-Man, the "Snooty Usher" in Spider-Man 2, and a maître d' in Spider-Man 3.
Campbell's most recent Raimi cameo was in Doctor Strange 2 and saw him assume the role of Pizza Poppa, a disgruntled vendor enchanted by Doctor Strange to continuously beat himself up for "about three weeks," as the sorcerer estimated. A deleted scene from Doctor Strange 2 shows the curse finally lifting, ending Pizza Poppa's torment. After a moment of disbelief, he clenches his fist and declares, "Doctor Strange has not seen the last of Pizza Poppa." This comedic beat is actually an Evil Dead reference, calling back to a scene in which Campbell's Ash faces off against his Deadite-possessed hand in Evil Dead II.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is available to stream on Disney+.
Source: Screen Rant